Narrations of (in)significant pasts in young people’s identity construction

Abstract

This article presents a study that examined the historical social narratives of 14–17-year-old Finnish-speaking adolescents in Finland and transnational settings. Our goal was to research what kinds of narratives young people would tell when they were asked to write the history of a group or nationality most suitable for them. The research material was collected as part of data collection in 2020 from three cities: a small Finnish town, a medium-sized city in Finland and a large European city outside Finland. We analysed whether young people chose to write national, sub-national or supra-national historical social narratives. Place-based differences in results were apparent, and we analysed these differences using the concept of spatial socialisation. We also discuss the challenges that history education faces in the light of our findings.